Broken Epithalamium
Jessica Bixel
Girl learns scald before endure / before instinct a body
vaguely in the half-light
snow in the shape of a small woman / mother
daughter / has there been some kind of death
already or is this not yet the aftermath /
the wife of an unfaithful husband is just called wife
and Girl belongs to what breaks her
all those usual dangers / do you believe me yet
Girl is the perfect weakness
Girl is two dark geese against the wintering sky
yet another loud ceremony of leaving / Girl will never make it home
the snow still graven and relentlessly blue / meanwhile the wife
pulling pearls from her throat
and pearls from her wrist names each one daughter
asks, are you still a mother if everything you’ve made has gone?
Jessica Bixel is between some lines of latitude and longitude. She is a recent Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee and her work can be found in Best New Poets 2015, Whiskey Island, Wildness, and Grist Journal, among others.